I Made The Film Nobody Else Would | ArtiFact 60: Destin Davis, Joel Parrish, Alex Sheremet

ArtiFact: Books, Art, Culture

Filmmaking can be highly technical, or not. As first-time director Alex Sheremet argues, finding the right topic and having an artistic blueprint in mind are far more important to master, as no amount of technical training will overcome bad ideas and artistic choices.

Alex Sheremet and Joel Parrish sit down with Destin Davis of the Benton Courier to discuss their upcoming film, “From There to There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet”.

You can also watch this conversation on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/o-eerpxlDlw

Watch the film’s first 8 minutes on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

Donate to "From There To There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet": https://www.gofundme.com/f/new-film-the-minneapolis-poet-bruce-ario

Destin Davis’s article: “Upcoming documentary chronicles the life and legacy of Minneapolis poet Bruce Ario” – https://www.bentoncourier.com/news/upcoming-documentary-chronicles-the-life-and-legacy-of-minneapolis-poet-bruce-ario/article_d4da549e-fe6e-11ee-8200-37b686dd31bf.html

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Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex Sheremet’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

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Timestamps:
1:18 – Joel Parrish discusses his art; transitioning into film work

3:01 – why Alex Sheremet wants to get back to writing; creating a film vs. executing on the page; writing must always stand on its own

4:32 – Destin Davis on newspaper writing; for film, the editing experience is quite different from shooting

5:50 – Alex on their DaVinci Resolve workflow; splitting up tasks; color grading vs. audio; Destin: the only way to shoot a film is to go out and do it; Joel: how photography is different from videography; Alex caught the photography bug

9:58 – Destin reviews the film’s first 8 minutes; Joel’s and Alex’s film equipment; Alex: you can make a great film under $10,000; pick a film-friend and split shooting duties

16:15 – how to take advantage of cheap equipment; technical deficiencies should be turned into strengths; the importance of having an overarching artistic blueprint; how the opening credits were designed; using composite and biographical material

19:05 – how Alex & Joel knew Bruce Ario; Bruce’s art and person; why we decided to do a film on Bruce Ario; even a non-reader of poetry can quickly ‘get’ Bruce’s poems

25:35 – how Alex used Bruce Ario’s poetry as the film’s framing device

28:00 – Minneapolis as the film’s center; Alex on how his book, “Woody Allen: Reel to Real”, prepared him to make a movie; Alex and Joel’s cinematic influences; Terrence Malick’s cinematography

35:20 –Terrence Malick’s “Badlands”; lo-fi aesthetics in film; preparing for a 30 minute rough cut; Destin Davis on the sameness of film festivals; people don’t talk about or read poetry anymore; poetry has the phantom of “uselessness”; Alex on an audience’s artistic discrimination; Joel: there is no Bruce Ario juvenilia, only the fully formed adult Bruce; how the brevity of Bruce’s poems helps the film

44:30 – understanding film vs. prose, poetry vs. prosaic scene-making; how to keep a film from being too prosaic

51:00 – timelines & practical considerations; film festivals; how filmmaking changes one’s film viewing habits; the faux documentaries of Werner Herzog; the lo-fi qualities of “Harlan County, USA”; influences from “Mr. Untouchable” and “Finding Vivian Maier”; Joel on “Searching for Sugarman”; the difficulty of reviewing John Cassavetes’s “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie”; Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage”; how Woody Allen’s films changed Alex’s life; distinguishing a character’s likability vs. goodness; drawing the wrong lessons from the right film

Tags: #filmmaking #cinematography #artist